


Went Upstairs To Kiss A Fellow

by gotfanfiction



Series: Fairy Tale Time [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Cinderella Elements, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Or Is It?, Unrequited Love, Yennefer is here, but not for very long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:21:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26127943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotfanfiction/pseuds/gotfanfiction
Summary: He’s a Witcher and a stranger both, so he turns to the oldest trick in the book: magic.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Fairy Tale Time [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897204
Comments: 16
Kudos: 163





	Went Upstairs To Kiss A Fellow

**Author's Note:**

> This would not have been written without @vvitchering, who has the best ideas and allows me to steal them with impunity. If you've noticed that it's different from the twitter thread it started from, that's because I edited it, added some more things in the middle, and gave it a tidier ending.

Geralt had managed to fall in love from a distance, the contract he’d been hired to fulfill obliging him to stay more or less in the same region for more than a month, now. He understands that it isn't normal, not for him, perhaps not for anyone else, they had never spoken, never met face to face, but every glimpse feels like a blessing, every overheard conversation is a moment to hear a voice that sends his heart to fluttering, every new thing Geralt learns about Julian, or Jaskier as he prefers to be addressed, just makes it worse, or better, and it's dizzying and he  _ wants. _

But his time here is coming to an end, and a Witcher shouldn’t make a habit of lingering where they are not needed, or wanted. It’s a coincidence that a large ball is being thrown for Jaskier the day Geralt is due to accept payment from the man’s father, and leave, but he would be even more a fool than he already feels not to at least take a risk. 

He’s a Witcher and a stranger both, so he turns to the oldest trick in the book: magic. Specifically, a glamour. He pays a sorceress with gold and a favor, and she takes his money and promise and gives him his one chance.

Being a Witcher comes with a natural, or unnatural, resistance to magic, even something as benign as a glamour, and Yennefer warns him that the spell won’t last for long even as she carefully puts the bits of jewelry into his hands, wishes him luck and gifts him with the sort of outfit a person might wear to an extravagant party.

The cuffs are a marvel of glass and silver, intricate and gleaming, and he slips them on, feels the magic settle like cool water over his body. As he pulls on his ridiculous new clothes he marvels at his own unblemished skin, the blueness of his eyes, runs his fingers through a mane of wild curls. He looks suitable, outlandish for him but understated enough that he won’t stand out one way or another.

He sneaks in, lurking around the edges of laughing groups of people, trying to catch the eye of the only reason he subjected himself to this thing, and he has nearly given up when he turns and meets eyes like sea glass, like the sky at noon, eyes that pierce him through to his soft, vulnerable core. 

They dance. It seems like hours, and Geralt is no dancer, but it’s easy as anything, to let his body move with Jaskier’s, to breath the same air; he doesn’t notice any of the people around them, doesn’t care that they must be staring, because for once he is just a man, and he lets himself be lead around the floor, up into a lavish room, into Jaskier’s arms and his bed.

Geralt is so content that he forgets, for a while, that this is just a waking dream, that it won't last. He fucks into the other man, his chest full and wondering how one heart could feel so much and not break, and he bites into a soft neck, moans his orgasm into sweet smelling hair, overwhelmed and almost delirious with it. 

He’s very near sleep when a whisper flits over his skin, a woman's voice,  _ time's up, _ and he sits up in bed in a panic, Jaskier reaching for him in sleep addled confusion. 

Geralt spits excuses while he gathers up his clothes; he can feel the glamour starting to slip, and he pushes one last kiss on his dream before he bolts out the door, and jumps out the first window he comes across. 

He doesn’t notice that he’d lost one of the cuffs until he was at an inn a half a day’s ride away, and as furious as he was at himself he was still grateful he had the one. It wasn't enough, but nothing besides Jaskier by his side forever would ever be, and it may be a cold comfort, but it was a comfort nonetheless.

**--**

He keeps the ear cuff. Wears it, even though he would normally never, and touches it sometimes, so the memories stay fresh. It's been months, now, since he danced with Jaskier, since he heard the noises he makes when he comes, and he's tried to convince himself that he's starting to move on, but it hasn't worked.

Geralt takes any contract he can, but work is infrequent, here. He's running out of coin, and Roach is getting more and more contrary the longer they stay camped in the woods, so he caves, heads back to a busier area, and despite himself he looks forward to a hot meal, and a hotter bath. He decides to check for work tomorrow, gets Roach set up in a stable, hauls his tired ass up into a room. 

Geralt doesn't drown in the bath, but it's a near thing; he soaked for upwards of an hour after scrubbing what felt like a year's worth of dirt off his skin. He's in such a good mood he doesn't spot him straight away; but he almost chokes on his ale when he does. 

Jaskier is talking to the barkeep, his fine clothes out of place here, the low light catching off the glitter smeared on his cheeks. And Geralt, well, he doesn't panic.

He knows that without the glamour he's unrecognizable, knows that he's so absolutely other that most people don't look at him and think, 'ah, a fellow human.' But still. There's a moment where his heart stutters in it's slow beating.

Whatever reason has brought Jaskier here, he's grateful for it. He settles in to watch him, not even remotely suspicious. 

He should have been. He really should have been.

Jaskier wanders over to where he's seated, eyeing his swords with thinly veiled interest, and he jumps a bit, when he looks at his face. Geralt knows, he  _ knows, _ that the glamour was air tight, that he looks almost nothing like he did as a normal man, but still. He smothers the hope down, sets his face as grimly as he can, unfriendly and maybe a little mean. 

Jaskier is undeterred, however, and he slides into the seat across from Geralt, puzzled smile crinkling at his eyes. "Why so sour faced, friend?"

"I'm not your friend," Geralt put a little more growl in his tone than he normally would.  _ Go away! _ he thought, desperately, but not as desperately as he wanted him to stay.

"Whyever not?" Jaskier grinned at him, leaned forward like he was divulging a secret.

"Is that not allowed? I won't tell anyone if you won't." 

Gods, he was being winked at, and Geralt wasn't sure if his heart could take much more of this. He turned his head away, taking a long drink. Maybe if he ignored him, Jaskier would just... leave on his own.

"I'm looking for someone," Jaskier sighed. "I've quite lost them, you see, and I was never really one for all that horseshit about love at first sight, but I've never felt a connection with someone so quickly. And of course the sex was phenomenal."

Geralt was too old to be riled up as easy as all that, but he still glanced over, grateful he couldn't blush and give himself away. Jaskier was still facing him, his left hand tucked under the table while his right rested within reach, and he swallowed the urge to clasp it in his own.

"This whole time, I've been looking for him. My parents are furious with me, but that's really how they always are. Would you blame me, friend, for wanting away from all that? For following my heart, for running away, for abandoning my duties on the slim chance of happiness?"

He wouldn't. He would never. Geralt had seen enough of that court to know that it was a cold place, Jaskier the exception, not without faults, but never as harsh as the place that had produced him. He caved, faced him fully. "No. Wanting more, wanting love, it just makes you human. It doesn't mean that you're a bad person. Humans are inherently selfish. It's better to be greedy for love than for war, or for riches."

Jaskier blinked at him for a moment. "Well, that's a ringing endorsement if I've ever heard one." A grin, sharp at the corners; it set off an alarm in the back of his mind. "I arranged everything with my sister, already. She's much better suited for all that nonsense than I ever was, honestly. She was very unimpressed by what finally kicked my arse out the door, though." 

He placed the twin the cuff Geralt was  _ wearing right now, damn it, _ on the table between them. 

"She's not one for romance at all, but she does worry for her fool of a brother. 'Witchers aren't built for love', she says, but I disagree. Mine certainly is." 

Geralt had been played. He stood up, but so did Jaskier, who also reached for him, grabbing his shirt and keeping him in place. 

"It was a shock, to see you looking so different, to see you come to me at last, to dance with you and fuck you after all the time I spent watching you. And then you left me." Jaskier frowned at him. Geralt couldn't look away.

"I'd planned to sneak out, to find you, to do whatever I could to lure you into my bed. I had plans! It would have been a marvelous seduction! Hey! Stop trying to leave, I'm not done talking, I--"

Geralt kissed him, put his mangled Witcher hands into that soft hair, the table digging into his hip, his back protesting the awkward angle he was bent at, but he didn't care. How could he care about anything besides the noises Jaskier was making, little whimpers as he clawed at Geralt's shoulders? 

He grabbed the earcuff, slipped it on. Maneuvered around and away from the table, dragged Jaskier upstairs, his mouth on him the whole time. He had months of time to make up for. 

**--**

Jaskier was humming to himself, propped up against the wall, trapped in place by Geralt, who was curled up around him like a large cat, and Geralt wanted to ask what was happening inside that pretty head of his, but was unwilling to break the peace that had settled over the room. 

He still couldn’t believe that they had both wasted so much time pining from afar, each convinced that the other wouldn’t want anything to do with someone so different from themselves. He considered what life would be like now, what adjustments would need to be made. Jaskier had made it perfectly clear that he was staying, no matter what, and Geralt knew it wouldn’t be easy, and that compromises would need to be made.

It would be worth it. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I don't have a beta, and if there's a typo please let me know so that I can fix it! I love you guys! Follow me on twitter @gotfanfiction if you'd like ;]


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